"Slap Yo Mama in The Face Good" Pulled Pork with Kentucky Black Bourbon BBQ Sauce

All right. Don't start with me because I don't want to have to get in your face. I don't just like barbecue. I feel barbecue. Ribs. Brisket. Pulled Pork. Call me crazy why don't you. Barbecue is real food. Wood. Smoke. Marinades. Brines. Dry rubs. And sauces. We can go a few rounds on sauces.

Oh I have had the good fortune of eating in some
of the best restaurants in the world. World famous Guy Savoy's namesake temple to gastronomy in Paris (twice). American legend Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Yountville. Le Cirque 2000 in New York. And perhaps, my favorite of the lot. Restaurant Arzak in San Sebastian, Spain. They are all wonderful. But they are not barbecue. You can have a passion for cooking. But no cuisine (other than French or Basque, perhaps) is considered "a passion". Except that is for barbecue.

I thought about this passion long and hard. And then I pulled out my crock pot. You probably think I need a slap in the face. But I'll get to that later.

Democracy and the Bill of Rights? Important milestones in governing our nation. Women's Suffrage. Its impact on civil government cannot be underestimated. The Civil Rights Voting Act of 1964. No doubt a gut wrenching change millions had to deal with. All of these milestones of society emerged through conflict. This country was founded on barbecue.

This kind of cooking is complicated. I don't mean the actual technical act of the cooking itself. Low and slow. Mesquite and Hickory. Indirect heat smokers. Nothing overly complicated at an execution level. Find a heat source. Light a fire. And let it go. The complexity comes down to a simple issue. No one can agree what defines real barbecue.

First of all, what meat do you use? Beef. Pork. Chicken. Once that is sorted then you have to argue about what is the best cut. Brisket. Loins. Ribs. Racks. Butts. Shoulders. Legs. Sausage. Some misguided people actually believe only beef brisket qualifies as BBQ. But I am a pork lover. I am ready to make my stand so bring it on.

And then there are the flavoring bases. Marinades. Dry Rubs. Wet Rubs. Brines. Vinegar based sauces. Tomato based. Heat. Sweet. Spicy. Smoky. I'm a wet tomato based sauce lover. I've actually had heated conversations about the whole wet vs. dry method of BBQ cooking. Don't invade my personal space on this topic as it won't turn out too good for you.

Now you just try having a rational barbecue conversation with someone from Memphis, or Texas. Kansas City or Georgia. Birmingham or Santa Maria. There is no agreement on what constitutes real barbecue. BBQ is a passion. Someone just might get hurt.

You'd think with my love of low and slow cooking I would sing the merits of mesquite. Or perhaps smokers. But I don't. Yeah, I'll stand outside in the hot sun for hours, clothes smelling of smoke. Wiping sweat off my brow. I'd rather pay someone else for that commitment however. But I still love eating barbecue at home. Which is why I use my slow cooker. I'm getting funny looks from people across the country right about now. But for my favorite type of barbecue, pulled pork in a sweet and spicy tomato based sauce, there is simply no need.

Simple and easy to make, a little water, some sliced onion and a good cut of pork are all that is needed to turn out fantastic BBQ. And the key for this recipe is that when the cooking is half way done you simply drain the water and chop the meat. Adding back in some homemade sauce and fresh chopped onion for the second round of cooking forces the meat to put off its liquid, causing a tenderness that forces a concentration in flavor. I've had pulled pork sandwiches at Smoki-O's in St. Louis. A small altar to porcine eating. This version is just as good.

I like making my own barbecue sauce. There are plenty of good versions you can purchase that are store bought. But I feel that if I am going to skip the whole "smoke your own and make a personal commitment" experience, the least I can do is cook my own masterful sauce. Oh, I'm a sauce guy as you well know and as I have written about previously here. In this version, I ad libbed a basic Steven Reichlen tomato based treatment, substituting a cajun rub for a dry BBQ rub and adding in extra cayenne. For me, the whole reason to do a tomato based sauce is to get the interplay of spicy versus sweet. You can start modestly and then add in 1/4 teaspoons of pepper to get to the right "low burn". I had a reasonable rendition of this at Dreamland BBQ in Birmingham a few times. They have been making BBQ since 1958. Although I call this a "Kentucky Black Bourbon" sauce, technically it isn't since it isn't purely vinegar based. I add in Balsamic vinegar and a touch of bourbon. A couple of bites of this and you'll start trash talkin'.

OK, OK. Calm down now. It's not done in a smoker. Or over wood. But this is cooked slowly and comes out meltingly tender. As my friend Bren over at FlaN Boyant Eats likes to say this is "slap yo mama in the face good". Let the fighting begin...

Recipe for Pulled Pork with Kentucky

Black Bourbon BBQ Sauce & Creamy Slaw

Serves 4

Ingredients

Pulled Pork
3-4 lb pork butt or shoulder
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cups BBQ sauce

Kentucky Black Bourbon BBQ Sauce
1 cup Heinz ketchup
1/2 cup Heinz or similar chili sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3 TBSP prepared yellow mustard
1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
1 TBSP bourbon
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper, with more to taste for heat

Creamy Slaw
2 cups sliced red or green cabbage
1/2 carrot grated
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 TBSP sour cream
1/4 tsp salt
11/4 tsp pepper

For Serving
4 soft hamburger buns
Dill pickles

Method

Pulled Pork
Put 2/3 of the sliced onion on the bottom of a 6 qt or larger slow cooker/crock pot. Lay pork roast over the onions. Add 1 1/2 cups of water and lay remaining onion slices over the top. Set cooker on "High" for 4 to 5 hours. Do not break the seal of the lid. Remove pork to a cutting board and let rest for 5 mins. Drain liquid and discard onions in slow cooker. Chop the pork into 1 to 2 inch pieces and add back into the crock pot. Add chopped onions and 1 1/4 cups of BBQ sauce and stir. Cook for an additional 4-5 hours on "Low" stirring 2 or 3 times. Using two forks, shred the pork.

Kentucky Black Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Combine all ingredients with 1/2 of the cayenne pepper in a 2 quart saucepan. Bring to a boil slowly and stir. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally until thickened. Check the sauce for heat and add more cayenne if needed.

Creamy Slaw

Whisk together the mayonnaise and the sour cream until smooth. Add in cider vinegar, salt and pepper and stir. Mix cabbage and carrot with the dressing and let sit for 30 minutes.

To serve the Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Wrap the buns in foil and heat in a 275 degree oven for 10 minutes. Mound 1/2 cup of the pulled pork on the bottom bun half. Place 3-4 TBSP of slaw over the top. Slather the top bun half with some of the remaining BBQ sauce. Serve with dill pickles on the side.

Adam and Eve Takeout - BBQ Pizza of Fig, Gorgonzola and Prosciutto

Certain things in life just go together. Adam and Eve. Heather Locklear and David Spade. Barbecues and Pizza…Sometimes the most curious combinations bring about the most delicious results. Chile and chocolate seem made for each other, as I have written about previously here. Combining clams and chorizo, a magical culinary wonderment of Portugal, is something my eyes were opened to on a previous trip to London, as another example.

Okay, from a biblical perspective it’s pretty clear that Heather and Dave getting together was a bad idea…But I am telling you right now that the pizza and the barbecue were meant to be united. And the home cook is the one that gets lucky in this unusual but effective culinary technique hookup.

Assuming we can all agree on the "genesis" of a good pizza – a thin crispy crust, the right balance and quantity of ingredients and a less than obnoxious amount of cheese, a homemade barbecue pizza delivers guaranteed results for the home cook. Any good pizza boils down to how good the crust is. You can have the best toppings in the world, but if the crust isn’t making your heart go wild with desire, that pizza is not going to make it past first base. Don’t think that dressing it up all pretty with a revealing anchovy or sensual wild mushroom is going to help. It may be “perfectly groomed” but everyone will still be able to tell what it really is - one unattractive pizza.

And unless you want to build a wood fired brick oven or buy an expensive high heat pizza maker, you options are pretty limited. Pizza stones, although an attempt in the right direction, provide mediocre results at best. Sort of like an opening pick-up line. Good attempt, poor execution. The premise is right, heat the stone in a hot oven that provides an appropriately hot surface to crisp up the crust in 10-12 minutes without overcooking the entire pizza. However, the results with this approach leave me less than, well, let’s just say “in love”. And that process takes too long, heating the stone and all. The investment in that courtship never winds up how you want it to anyways.

Americans lust for anything related to the barbecue. And not being one to miss out on a good time I have been using the pizza grilling technique since 1994. I was fortunate enough to eye a television demonstration of the concept done by the owners of Al Forno, a restaurant in Rhode Island widely credited with innovating this concept in the United States.

At its core, the pizza is simply a delivery vehicle for good ingredients. And the barbecue approach lends itself to any combination your heart (and stomach) desires. I am a huge lover of tapas and was fooling around with the idea of how I could serve one my favorites created by superstar chef Mario Batali that involved grilled figs with Serrano ham and blue cheese. My challenge involved a tapas appetizer for a dinner party but no easy way of serving such a messy dish while guests were standing up and mingling, iced Pinot Gris in hand. Being the height of fig season, and the fact that it was hot outside, I wanted to provide my guests with a way to enjoy the tapas but not have to use a knife or fork. Or worry about swallowing a large bite as the stuffed and wrapped figs can get pretty large and unwieldy. I also didn’t want to heat up the house by turning on the oven. My solution was to deconstruct it and transform it into a grilled pizza on the barbecue.

Grilling pizza is very easy to do and success is predicated on preparation before you start cooking. All the ingredients need to be ready to go, literally “mise en place”. Whatever ingredients you are using, make sure they are ready, plated and easily movable to your outdoor BBQ from the kitchen when you are ready to start cooking. Once the dough hits the hot grill, you need to work fast to cover up that naked pizza and you don’t want to be running back to the kitchen in shame prepping anything or your timing will be all off.

From a BBQ perspective, while any heating source will work - gas, charcoal, wood - I consistently get the best results with a gas grill. You can control the temperature throughout the relatively short cooking process which is important. BBQ pizza takes 6-7 minutes to cook completely. I have burned the crust using charcoal for heat. Just ask David (my cousin, not Spade).

Also, a word about making pizza dough versus going the store bought route. Occasionally I make my own dough but I find a negligible difference in quality of the end product versus buying store bought dough for the BBQ method. I use dough made from Trader Joe's, however if your store doesn’t carry it, most independent pizzerias that make their own will sell you pizza dough. Just don’t use a national chain for the dough as it defeats the purpose of highlighting great ingredients for what should be a good time.

Now, take a bite out and tell me how “deadly delicious” and good looking this pizza is. I wonder if Heather and David would have lasted longer had they only tried this instead of eating the forbidden fruit of the old apple tree…

Recipe for BBQ Grilled Pizza with Figs, Prosciutto and Blue Cheese
Makes 1 Pizza and serves 2-3 as a main course

or 4-6 as an appetizer

Ingredients
16 oz fresh pizza dough
Flour for rolling
Olive oil for dough and grill
½ cup fig jam (recipe below) or store bought
4 ripe figs (I prefer Mission but any fresh ripe fig will work)
3-4 oz of Gorgonzola or other blue cheese
3 slices of prosciutto cut into 3” strips
1 TBSP chopped flat leaf Italian parsley

Method
Bring pizza dough out of the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, make sure your grill grate is clean and scraped. Heat the BBQ on high for 10 minutes with the top down. Flour a large cutting board or a counter where you can roll out the dough. Flour the top of the dough and roll out the pizza into a roughly 6” by 10” shape with a ¼ inch thickness. Keep in mind when grilling pizza the dough does not need to be round or perfect, it can be any shape when you put it on the grill. Brush olive oil onto the surface of the dough so it is lightly covered.

Open the grill cover and lower the grill heat to a medium high flame. Pickup the dough up and carefully lay it on the hot grate. As you are laying the dough on the grate it will stretch. That’s fine, just make sure it is relatively flat on the grill, again the shape doesn’t matter, oblong, heart shaped, map of Kazakhstan - all are fine. Close the grill cover and let this cook over a medium high flame. After 2 minutes, open the grill and with the tongs check the bottom of the dough. It should be golden with grill marks. You can cook it for one additional minute if the dough is not golden. If there are bubbles on top of the dough you can use the tongs to pierce them. Turn the dough over and bring the heat down to medium low to low.

Spread the fig jam and then crumble the blue cheese over the pizza. Lay out the figs and close the cover, cooking for 4 minutes. Open the grill and check for doneness. If you need another minute, leave the grill on or if it looks done, turn the grill off. Scatter the prosciutto strips over the pizza and then sprinkle the chopped parsley on top. Using your tongs slide the pizza onto a cutting board. Slice and serve.

Recipe for Fig Jam
I use store bought fig jam often, however if you are up for making your own, please try this delicious and easy to make recipe from fellow food blogger Alexa at http://www.artsy-foodie.blogspot.com/.

Ingredients
Makes 1/2 cup
5 ripe figs, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup of water

2 tablespoon of agave nectar (or honey)

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of chopped crystallised ginger (optional)

1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 tsp of fresh lemon juice

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a small pot over medium-low heat and bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, mixing every few minutes, until thickened to a jam consistency. Cool on a plate and refrigerate until ready to serve. It will keep for 3 days in the fridge.